Sunday, April 27, 2014

Perry Mason

God’s Son Incarnate

Raymond Burr hasPerry Mason

Between
1957 and 1966 there appeared on American TV screens the legal drama Perry Mason.1 The show was hugely
popular and had a very long life in syndication. The series has not aged well
however and it shows its age quite plainly. I mentioned Perry Mason in a previous posting2, in passing;
here I will go through some of the aspects of the show.

Monday, April 21, 2014

Literate Babylonians

Cuneiform Tablet

One of the conceits of
much scholarly literature concerning the ancient peoples of Iraq was that the
overwhelming majority of the population was completely illiterate in the cuneiform
writing system used. The idea is that the writing system was so complicated and
difficult to learn that only a few scribes could possibly have been able to
master the system.

Sunday, April 13, 2014

A
Silly Series of Lists

Part
1

Last year Entertainment Weekly published a
special issue called The 100 All-Time
Greatest. The issue was composed of several lists, of “Best” movies, TV
shows, music, plays and novels.1 Now to be blunt top 100 lists are basically usually
little more than indication of personal taste. And this magazine of lists is
little better than that.

Tuesday, April 08, 2014

Hannibal’s
Mistake?

Hannibal

In Livy’s series of
books about the Second Punic War (218-201 B.C.E.) there is a scene in which
after the battle of Cannae in which a commander of the Carthaginian cavalry Maharbal has a conversation with Hannibal, who was in command of the
Carthaginian army in Italy.